Results for Category: Botanical
Creating a Local Materia Medica With Plantain (+ Plantain Salve Recipe)
Part of the beauty of a local materia medica is its humility, and you can’t get much more humble than plantain (Plantago spp.). Considered a weed the world over, this tenacious and resilient plant steadfastly grows in lawns, fields, roadsides, disturbed land, sidewalk cracks—you name it. And while plantain is often overlooked today (saved by…
Unlock the Power of Mint: A Family-Friendly Herb
Beautifully fragrant with a delightful taste, amazing mint (Mentha genus) is a helpful and welcome herb for everyone in the family...
Creating a Local Materia Medica with Yellow Dock
I had originally intended to write this month’s local materia medica about another herb entirely, but then I replaced the fe...
How To Stay Cool Using Herbs
Summer is just around the corner, and many of us are looking forward to the seasonal activities that come along with it—grilling outdoors with friends and family, visits to the beach or our favorite swimming holes, outdoor concerts and events, and more fun in the sun. But depending on where you live, things might be…
A Family Herb: Gentle Linden Flower and Leaf
Deliciously fragrant linden trees perfume the air in early summer, beckoning us to come and enjoy their beneficial properties for body, mind, and spirit. This stately tree, a time-tested favorite herbal remedy in Europe, is often found lining city streets and growing in parks. And it may surprise you to know that linden flower and…
Reflections of an Herb Gardener
To those who are afraid of starting an herb garden, don’t be. The rewards of having your own fresh herbs to use and dry, the the...
Creating a Local Materia Medica with Violet
Modern herbalists are fortunate to have access to a vast array of herbs from far corners of the globe. Herbs and spices have long ...
A Family Herb: Helpful Calendula Blossoms
Vivacious, happy Calendula blossoms are a delight to grow and use in herbal remedies for everyone in the family. As a member of the Asteraceae family, Calendula (Calendula officinalis) is a relative of other helpful plants such as chamomile, yarrow, dandelion, Echinacea, and Arnica. And just like its family members, Calendula has a plethora of…
Feast on Spring Nettle! Wild Greens with Beans Soup Recipe
Spring is that wonderful time of year when we emerge from our winter hibernation into a fresh, green world. And, as we being to explore the newly grown and fresh plants, there are many that we can harvest and eat. These plants have a delicious flavor and many nutritional benefits to enjoy. One popular green…
How To Use Schisandra For The Liver
One of my favorite herbs is Schisandra chinensis (Wu Wei Zi). I don’t think there is anything that schisandra can’t do, and...
3 Ways to Use Cleavers for Spring Cleansing
Herbal greens like plantain and chickweed that begin to emerge as soon as the snows melt are fairly well known, but there is anoth...
A Family Herb: Stinging Nettle Leaf Uses
The first plants to rise up in the spring, gracing the world with green, often include the very herbs we can most successfully use to be healthy and strong. It’s seasonal herbalism at its best with healthful weedy plants such as dandelions, violets, and chickweed expressing their vitality by simply growing all on their own…
A Family Herb: Dandelion
Hillsides and fields awash with vibrant greens and yellow blooms beckon us outside to enjoy warming springtime weather. It’s here, right under our feet, that we may find one of the most treasured plants in the world of herbalism. Well-known by children and often the bane of gardeners, the humble dandelion (Taraxcum officinale) is a…
Purslane: A Nutritional Herb
By Nina Katz – Herbalist Purslane is a land-based vegetable that is extremely high in nutrients and makes a great addition t...
4 Ways To Fertilize Your Garden With Herbs
We use herbs for nutrition and health but don’t often consider that these same benefits can also extend to our gardens. Fertiliz...
How To Have A Sensational Experience With Oatstraw
by Rebecca Swartwood Salty, sweet, milky, feminine, watery, strengthening, silky, easy… These were my initial impressions after drinking my first cup of oatstraw infusion. It was soothingly thick, almost chewable in my mouth, coating throat and stomach with its healing liquid. As I sat with the tea, I felt strengthened deep into my core, the…
4 Reasons Thyme Is An Herb For Winter Health
There are many herbal allies that you may enjoy working with during the long, cold winter months. Elderberry and elecampane are a couple that come to mind, or perhaps astragalus or angelica are a better fit for you. However, it might surprise you that an herb tucked away into your kitchen cabinet, thyme, is the…
3 Raspberry Leaf Benefits For Women
When thinking of raspberry, visions of tart, delicious little berries come to mind, yet the familiar raspberry offers us much more...
Heart Happy Herbs for Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day is upon us and love is in the air! This holiday is a great reminder to enjoy special relationships with loved on...
History and Uses of Common Ivy
Helix hedera, or common ivy, is a familiar garden and houseplant to many people. Sometimes, ivy is used as a greenery decoration during the holidays, and an old Christmas carol “The Holly and The Ivy,” even bears the plant in its title. Using ivy in holiday decorations, though, is a custom that goes back all…
Learn About the Mistletoe
Mistletoe, Viscum Album The familiar, white-berried token of the winter holiday season, mistletoe, is a parasitic plant that grows on the branches of several species of trees. Mistletoe burrows roots into the inner wood of trees and feeds from their sap, and a heavy infestation with mistletoe can kill branches of the host plant or even…
Autumn Wildharvesting Guide: Herbal Roots
Fall is the best time to harvest the roots, some berries, flowers, and cold weather herbs that we miss once the heat of summer com...
10 Helpful Tips for Wildcrafting Herbs
Wildcrafting is the practice of foraging for useful plants from their natural, wild habitat for edible or herbal purposes. Wildcra...
Finding the Roots of Our Herbal Traditions
Fall is all about root medicine. As our plants ready themselves for winter, many of them draw their energy down into the roots to wait out a season of cold and rest. Burdock, dandelion, butterfly weed, angelica, and licorice are just a few of the herbs we cherish for their medicine underground. With roots at…
Plantain, A Story
We have plantain growing all over our yard. I’m a new, not yet budding herbalist, and I have yet to use it. I have been lying in wait for someone in my household to get a bug bite so that I could try crunching up a leaf and making a spit poultice. I have been…
An Introduction Into Canine Herbalism
If you have dogs, you probably cannot count the times you’ve seen them run to a patch of something green and begin to consume it...
A Family Herb: Chamomile Flower
The lovely little chamomile flower is reminiscent of peaceful sunshine filled days, which speaks to the gentle power of this plant...
Herbs Underground: Tubers, Corms, and Roots
Roots are out of sight, out of mind. They work behind the scenes, powering the ability of a plant to use nutrients from the soil, and sometimes even enriching the dirt for other plants by pulling up nutrients from farther underground or using special nodes to fix nitrogen in the soil. To herbalists, though, roots…
Motherwort: The Plant World’s Mama Bear
Motherwort is the plant world’s mama bear. Or mama lion, from its Latin name Leonurus cardiaca, which translates to the Lion-Hearted One (Bennett, 2014). Motherwort Plant Profile This mint-family member has the ubiquitous square-stems that run in the family. Motherwort’s miniature blooms are delicately painted soft pink, and resemble the healthy womb and reproductive system…
The Horseradish Plant: Harvesting, Processing & Uses
Fall is fast approaching, and with it comes the harvesting of roots. And the horseradish plant is high on our list! For those of y...
